I'd like to share the membership application process with the CUSoCal, a geofenced CU for CA residence only.
It is one of the CU that let you apply for CC and HELOC without requiring you to obtain a membership first to know if you can be approved for their cards or loan. So, apparently they ran my CC application, and I got the approval for 15K for their CC. I also applied for their HELOC since it has the lowest rate so far that I have researched. They then told me to apply for the membership to move on with the issuance of the card. And this was back on July 2nd - close to July4th weeknd.
I applied online for their membership, checking and savings on Monday night. Got the pending review message. The following day, I got a message that my application for membership/checking/savings has been denied due to ChexSystems' showing multiple inquiries. I tried to contact them for reconsideration. No budge. I called their office, and one of the nice ladies told me to go to the branch in person and ask for reconsideration. I called the HELOC department and also the lady that infromed me the approval of their CC to help me talking with their digital solution team to allow me to get the membership since the muiltiple inquiries are because I am shopping for HELOC with 6 CUs, and all of those CUs will not proceed with the application UNLESS I apply for their memberships first. And during I was not able to come to the branch since I was travelling out of state until Friday night. Still none was able to help me and the digital solution team still denied me for membership.
On Saturday morning, I went to the branch in Costa Mesa without an appointment. I was lucky, that the branch manager allowed me to talk with him without an appointment, and I explained the situation of what's going on. So he verified with me every CU that I applied and asked if I were able to obtain membership, and I said yes, except 2 - BECU and Golden West. He said, fair enough, your answer was correct and honest. He was able to see everything - accounts that I opened, the CC that I obtained from the CUs (2 from PenFed, 1 from DCU, 1 from PSECU). I guessed they are showing as loan extended to me. He then told one of the banker clerk that He overrode the denial and allowed me to proceed with the membership. Such a nice guy!!!
Then the clerk helped me out to open the membership. Once it is done, I called the CC department and told them that I now had a membership number. She read the notes and congratulated me for being persistent, and said that she would send me a letter via Docusign about the T&C, and once I opened and acknowledged they would send a card to me within 7-10 business days.
Glad to finally work out at the end, and now I can proceed with my HELOC application. They are such a great CU. They have a very low auto loan APR as well. And their checking has Overdraft and Courtesy Pay features that are very attractive. If you turn both features on, you would automatically get up to $1750 overdraft line with only $29 charge per item. That's a very nice feature.
I thought I would share this to those who are looking for a good CU with good low rates. Thanks.
Congratulations on your membership and CC approval! Thank you for sharing the data points.
hp/sp for membership?
Any bank bonuses? 
SP for membership. They pull EX 8.
